Leases & Rental Agreements (Quick & Legal Series)

Here's a quick and easy way for landlords to create the key documents necessary for owning or managing rental property--a legally valid residential lease or a rental agreement. The book also shows how to comply with state and federal laws when renting or leasing residential property and provides legal and practical advice on dealing with deposits, inspections, habitability, and much more. Includes tear-out forms.

Binding legal agreements are part of every contemporary American's life, and advice on them can be welcome and valuable. Stewart and Warner provide some in a nicely laid out and well-organized guide mostly for landlords. They explain the renting game clearly and with many sample forms (which may tempt some to use the guide as a workbook, so libraries may want to keep a reference copy for single-use photocopying, at least until subsequent editions--legal advice publisher Nolo updates its wares regularly--come out). They promise to help turn the property holder into a successful landlord with useful advice on such matters as whether to prefer a lease or a rental agreement and changing or ending a tenancy. Since they also describe how to avoid illegal discrimination, renters may find the book well worth perusing, too. Indeed, the good overview they afford of all the legal ins, outs, ups, and downs of the landlord-tenant relationship might be the spur that goads balky readers to buy rather than rent. Mike Tribby

Aimed at owners and managers of residential rental property, this new collection of forms and guidelines is designed to help with the creation of leases, rental agreements, and related documents. The authors' legal advice is accompanied by sound suggestions for managing rental arrangements. Stewart and Warner build the documents from the ground up by defining terms, enumerating issues to consider, offering alternative clauses, and highlighting problem areas. In an especially good discussion of choosing tenants, readers will find counsel on advertising property, checking references, and avoiding discrimination. Forms for consent to background check, rental application, and tenant references complete the discussion. The plentiful tables include references to state laws on security deposits, landlord access to rental property, and lists of states that limit security deposits. An appendix offers tear-away forms that cover a number of common landlord/tenant situations. This book works well with the authors' Every Landlord's Legal Guide (LJ 4/15/96), a comprehensive look at state and federal laws governing landlord-tenant relations. Recommended for most public libraries.?Joan Pedzich, Harris, Beach & Wilcox, Rochester, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.